Farmer’s markets make me feel guilty.

There. I’ve said it.

I live in a place that celebrates the local: food, beer, music, and more. And I love all those things as well, but the farmer’s markets just overwhelm me.

Here is fresh lettuce. Here is aged cheese. Here is locally raised and “processed” chicken. Here are seedlings and young plants ready to come home and thrive. Here are peppers, rutabaga, apples, and a wide selection of leafy green loveliness that I don’t even recognize.

But it’s early on Saturday morning. I don’t know what I’m going to make for dinner tonight, much less the rest of the week. I forgot to bring bags! I don’t have recipes for rutabaga! I don’t have beds ready to plant those seedlings, and my pots all cracked when I didn’t bring them in last winter! It’s going to take me an hour (at a four-year-old’s pace) to walk home and the cheese will get hot!

For some people, the farmer’s market marks the halfway point of an idyllic farm-to-table journey. For me, though I visit faithfully every week, it’s a hint that my table may not be quite up to snuff. In nearly every way, I am unprepared.

Except for one. I am fully prepared to eat a delicious chocolate croissant, made just this morning, from local ingredients. Mmmmm….

Anyway. Thank you, farmer’s market. I’ll try to do better next week.